Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said the results of The Daily Memphian’s crime poll show he’s on the right side of every issue, but he declined to take credit for shaping public opinion. 

Strickland spent the better part of his second term speaking out against a criminal justice system he’s called a “revolving door,” a phrase he’s used close to two dozen times in his weekly newsletter since 2021. Much of his messaging has focused on prison sentencing, which he argued was too loose. 

Strickland pushes bill to give violent offenders longer sentences

The Daily Memphian’s crime poll shows voters believe him. When presented with a list of options about what should be the top priority to reduce crime, 44% chose tougher prison sentences, the next-closest choice — more community policing — trailed it by 25 percentage points. 

In an interview about residents’ perceptions of crime, as shown in polling data commissioned by The Daily Memphian, the mayor was defensive, circumspect and angry about crime. 

Behind The Headlines: Strickland on crime

He sat down for a question-and-answer session Tuesday, June 20. 

The Daily Memphian’s crime poll is being released as the city deals with a homicide pace that could threaten records, an explosion in car break-ins that mirrors that seen nationwide and notable incidents of violence throughout the past year.

What stood out to you in the data?

I think the fact that their positions or their opinions on what should be done were very consistent with what I think people think.

And how have you come to conclude what people think?

Well, because for almost 16 years, I’ve been in elected office and out in the community probably more than anyone else.

What influence do you think your office and the messaging your office puts out has on what people think?

I don’t know.

What struck me about how people felt about MPD was that the biggest group of people just think it’s average, with 37% of people thinking MPD as a whole is average and 40% of individual officers average. What do you take away from that?

People are frustrated with the level of crime.

So you think that their opinion of the police department would go up if crime were lower?

Absolutely. I have to note I disagree with their assessment. I think our police officers are doing a great job. But I think anytime you do public opinion surveys and people are not happy with the end result, their opinion of the group or individuals that you asked about is going to be lower.

Given how dissatisfied people seem to be with the level of crime, how should this data reflect on your administration and your success in remedying that problem?

I don’t really care ... what I care about is solving the problem, and the problem that we have is crime. Violent and property crime are way too high. And solving crime is a very complex, very involved matter, and we have a comprehensive plan that we are executing. The number one challenge we have on the law enforcement side is the revolving door (in) the courts that carry almost zero consequence to too many criminals. And that is what is driving this large increase in crime. And that’s what I’m focused on, how to solve that.

The poll suggests that a lot of people consider moving, whether it’s in Memphis to a suburb or out of the area altogether, because of crime. How concerned should your successor be about that? 

I think we all should be very concerned about that. When I first ran for city council, 2002 to 2003, a business leader here was a very wise student of what was going on in Memphis, and they said that people were voting with their tail lights. And the reason they were done was for crime and schools. Between 1980 and 2010, 120,000 people moved out of Memphis.

We have drastically changed that equation from 2010 to 2020. We say we’ve actually grown the population. The census now says we’ve lost less than 10,000 people. But either way, it’s an improvement over what had been going on. But this recent increase in crime, I think, has brought those old feelings back up. And we all, whether you’re an elected official or just the general public, ought to be very concerned about that.

I’ve talked to individuals who are questioning whether they should remain in Memphis. I’ve talked to business owners who are questioning their investments in this city, and that gives me an even greater sense of urgency to try to fix this issue. And we all should be very concerned about that. And that’s what makes me even more frustrated with the judicial system.

There seems to be no sense of urgency, no sense of realization, that there is a major problem and that they are the large driver in the problem, and that they need to change to fix it.

Was part of the city’s reason for challenging the census challenging that narrative? 

Yes.